Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Who knows where this post will go............



I'm just going to start typing.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! I've been an on-task kind of woman and I love it.

Nesting is in full swing. Pray for Jason. I have a list of things that I obviously can't lift or do for him to take care of.

I don't know why it happens this way, but once you find out what your next baby is going to be it's almost like you kick into "the baby is coming" mode. I guess its because usually (for those of us who so dare find out the sexes of our babies) we find out the gender about mid-way through our pregnancy. This means we are halfway there to meeting our precious new one.

We are super thrilled about having a third girl. We haven't officially decided on a name, but we've gotten it narrowed down considerably- well actually to just two. Well, three if you throw in the name that I really love, but Jason isn't crazy about. I actually kind of like that he has an opinion about the name of this little girl. He didn't really have one with the other two. But, then again we sort of knew their names before we even found out what we were having.

So back to nesting......

I cornered two older women at church this weekend and begged them to give me insight into organizing girl clothes. One of these women had FIVE girls and the other had FOUR. I guess I feel like that could eventually be my life. I already feel like girl clothes are overtaking my life. And I don't even have sizes 6-12 months in my house right now. My precious niece Ava has those.

I have them arranged right now according to size. But, Laney Rae and KK are both so shady (did I just call my girls shady???) in their sizes that one outfit of one size may work and another not fit at all. So, this is why the clothes that we have out right now range from 24 months to 5T. Laney Rae has been known to wear even a size 3T these days......and so has Kaylyn.

So, as you can see, the dilemma presents itself.

On top of that, I think of adding baby clothes, socks, blankets, burp cloths, towels, and all of the extras. Its sort of caused me to lay in bed at night a draw a diagram of the girls' closet in my head.

It may seem easy to you from the outside looking in, but I can assure its rocket science so don't be a hater.

Any tips out there from mom's who have more than one child of the same gender?

The bonus to all of this clothes non-sense and brainstorming is that it has caused me to become extremely AWESOME at laundry. I'm loving this.

Laundry has always been an area of mine that has need lots of improvement. My house could be completely spotless, but if you decided to wander into the laundry room, you'd see the tornado scene out of The Wizard of Oz.

Along with cornering these moms, I asked them in my questioning process,"How did you keep up with all of the laundry?"

Both of them responded the words I'd dreaded hearing,"I did a load a day."

Deep down inside I've always known this was the answer. I've heard others even say it. But, I didn't really practice it until these past few weeks.

It has changed my laundry life. I just do a load of whatever is the biggest load for that day- whites, jeans, colors, towels. If I don't really have a load that's big enough to wash, I wash the linens......I love saying linens. It makes me feel fancy!

Another thing that I slacked off doing during the beginning of my pregnancy, was making my own detergent. And to be honest with you, I wasn't really digging my old recipe very much. Our clothes over time began to look dingy and the stains weren't coming off.

But, I think the problem was the baking soda in the recipe. The new recipe that I am using doesn't have baking soda in it. I got it off of a friend's blog and I love it! I've been usually it consistently for a while now and I'm happy to report that its cleaning great! I was a little afraid to recommend it without trying it out for a while.

I will say that I add 1/2 cup of OxyClean to mostly every load too. I love that stuff and would be sad if I had to part ways with it. Farm life brings lots of messy clothes! Its really not all that bad. So, I will continue to use it.

Another thing I'm loving are DRYER BALLS!
I picked some up randomly at Wal-Mart. I love them because since I don't add any fabric softener to our clothes, these tend to do the trick. They're amazing!

Just give them a try!

If you end up hating them, they can become an instant toy for you kiddos to play with.

9 comments:

Connie said...

#1 I succumbed to the one load a day and I too can attest that it has changed our lives. It took me a while to get to a point where it worked out but now...WOW...laundry is the least of my concerns these days.

#2 Clothes. I don't know that I have any constructive advice but I'll tell you what we do and you can glean from it what might work for you. I keep only the best looking clothes or special ones from Mia. They go in boxes according to season only b/c my girls are very different sizes too. Mia....long and skinny, Jules short and pot bellied. This way I can pull out the winter stuff and depending on what size Jules is at the time I get what I need.

Now, of course this works b/c the girls are only 2 years apart so it's not like I have a size 7 sweater and a 24 month. It's all within two years.

And since I have only two girls...I'll stop here :)

the amys said...

OK, I have had to discipline myself to putting them up according to sizes. I keep one tupperware tub, per year of life and stick to the sizes. Will can wear some 24 mon and some 3t, but I only put 2t's in his drawer. Grayson is only wearing 12-18 mon. so that is all that is in his drawer. I also have given clothes away that are too worn to pass down. I am still tweaking the system, but so far that is what I have. Grady is the only one in new clothes, but he is already in a 5t. It is so confusing. CONGRATS!

Anonymous said...

Oh, I know about laundry and farm life though! My sister-in-law has found out that she needs boy stuff now since she's having a boy this time around, right now she has an almost 4 year old daughter, she's 39 weeks pregnant today, she's had her hospital bags packed for weeks now and has a hand made cradle put up in their bedroom now it's just waiting for their son to get here! This will be my 1st nephew and my parent's 1st grandson as well as her parent's 2nd grandchild but 1st grandson. But luckily she had a few boy clothes already from when her daughter was a baby and my sister sent her a few too.

QuiltedSimple said...

You crack me up! I can't tell you about clothes, having a boy and a girl, but I have lots of stuff put away for both kids (I tend to buy on clearance and buy several sizes ahead). When Jessie needs jeans, I pull out the box with the bigger size jeans, and we go through them and see what will fit now and what will fit shortly. She bounces back and forth between slim and regular, so she tries on every pair, and I keep the ones that are close to fitting on a shelf in her closet, and the ones that actually fit in her cupboard. Same with shirts, dresses, etc. And same for Tyler. I keep all jeans in 1 box, shirts in 1 box, shorts in a box.....and so forth. Hope this may help! Have a great evening!
Kris

Anonymous said...

so proud of you sweetie getting a handle on your laundry...sounds like you have a great idea on all the sortin' out the clothes and stuff...stay on top of it, is all i can say cause' you know what a new baby will bring..more laundry..what happened to the "good old days" when j-bob loved doing laundry??? just kidding..i know he is working 12 to 15 hour days...good luck and GOD bless..love mom

Carpio Family said...

ok, so glad you wrote about this.

I am small so i do totes in about 6 months catergories. I know sound like a lot of totes. But this way i can go to the attic and get what i need. Other wise the totes are huge and i have to wait till dear ole hubby came home.

Oh, and i love the detergent recipe. I have used this one from the start and does great on "climbing in manholes" dirt from Carlos. The baking soda helpes with smells too.

And dryer balls..... Magnificent. They cut drying time and my clothes don't get tangled. No fabric softner, money saved.

Just don't squeeze them. I thought since they were warm i could, and it wouldn't matter, they cracked the next use and i had to buy more.
Still not too shabby for $5.

Rachel said...

I'm glad you are using the soap recipe and it works for you! I found that oxiclean added really helps with little-boy-digging-in-dirt-clothes.

As for the clothes organizing, I can't help you there, but we do 6 month at a time tubs like Caylene. It seems to help with the overlap. I keep the previous tub in the closet so the stuff that still fits can be tossed in as they gradually outgrow that size.

mandi said...

thanks for the laundry 'recipe'. i'll try that. i love my laundry balls too! so does levi- i'm constantly having to search in his room for them! something else i do- i add a couple of drops of lavendar to an old, lonely sock and throw it into the dryer. this helps with static cling and softens too!
oh- the 1 load a day system. this is what i tell myself i do, but really, i don't. i need to though!

Williams Five said...

I would love to give you some tips but I am where you are! Now that girl #3 is on her way. I need to get with it! Let me know how it goes.